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21 June 2008

Can you help the pets of the flooded Midwest?

Sometimes Gina and I marvel at how much the worlds of politics and pets overlap. From Katrina to the pet food recall to shelter reform and legislation, everywhere we turn, there it is: the politics of pets.

So I clicked. And I read about the sad stories of people who had to leave their family pets and livestock behind, and the good folks who were doing their best to reunite the human and animal family members, and save the lives of the farm animals when they could, and save them from suffering when that was the best that could be done.

In the world of animal organizations, everyone has an opinion about everyone else. There is no group that I can honestly say represents my exact views on every subject, and there are a few issues on which I differ with Best Friends. But out of all the "big name" groups dedicated to humane causes, few do as much of the hands-on, glamorless hard work as Best Friends.

Serving as what Nathan Winograd recently termed the "third door" of animal lifesaving, they offer rescue, adoption, treatment, hospice, and life-long sanctuary, according to the best interests of the animals that come into their care. Unlike some better-funded and better-known national organizations, they actually have a facility where they shelter animals in need. And they work on the front lines promoting a no-kill nation, too -- not just in their own organization, not just in Utah, but everywhere.

But this story is about the "rescue" part of their mission. From a story about the flooded town of Oakville, Iowa:

Best Friends Rapid Response manager, Rich Crook, and his swiftwater-trained team were piloting a Hurricane Katrina-tested, 14-foot Jon boat through the town, looking for abandoned dogs and cats.

“It’s a familiar scene,” says Crook, who along with dozens of Best Friends employees and volunteers spent months helping to save 6,000 dogs and cats in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

We went out on the water at sunrise this morning. We’re doing door-to-door grid searches of the town of Oakville. It’s sad for the people of Oakville. The whole city is under water. So far, we have managed to survey about 30 percent of the town and will have 50 percent completed by this afternoon. We’ll resume in the morning.

Thus far, we are not seeing a lot of companion animals, but the situation with farm animals is dire.

We rescued one mother cat and her two kittens this morning. The first floor was flooded, but the cats were luckily on the second floor. The owners called in the request for help and are coming to pick up the kitties right now.

[....]

We are going to do another cat rescue this afternoon, and we will be picking up any animals we encounter during the grid search.

So even if you have some issues with Best Friends on, say, their (far from extremist) support for some forms of mandatory spay/neuter legislation, see if you can't find it in your heart to send them some love in the form of cash anyway. They've earned it, and the animals of the flooded Midwest need it.

If you – or someone you know – is trying to track down animals missing during the flood, you can check to see if they’ve been taken into temporary care by calling Best Friends Animal Society’s Animal Help department, (435) 644-2001, ext. 4789, or e-mail animalhelp@bestfriends.org.

Comments

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While I may disagree with Best Friends on a few issue, they are NOT hypocrits. They do try to do the best for any animal that comes into their care and they practice what they preach. I have always admired their positive approach and use of examples of successes to make friends and allies out of the animal loving public rather than threats, hyperbole, and stunts.

That picture is great! The cat looks like he's thankful for the rescue but is really ready to get back in his kittycup now.

I feel the same way about Best Friends - don't agree with them on all the issues but they do a lot of good for the animals. Other than complaining about the pigs that were shot on the levee, I haven't heard of PETA doing anything to help the animals affected by the floods. I guess they figure their mobile death van couldn't drive through the water so they can get more killing done by staying in their glass house in VA.

While I concede Best Friends does do good for animals, they have treated me personally absolutely abysmally, and they won't get a dime from me, ever. I can - and do - give money to organizations that treat both animals and people well.

As a veteran of Katrina recovery operations (searching for human victims through a state-to-state EMAC deployment request for *qualified* responders), I would caution everyone to employ the utmost skepticism about any individual's or organization's self-accounting of their own disaster heroics. Especially when done in the vicinity of a PayPal button.

After seeing the on-ground performance of some parties in Mississippi, then observing the accounts they used for fund-raising purposes after the fact, even I could still muster some astonishment at the extent of the reality gap.

Also in Mississippi, the Best Friends "worker" that I encountered while waiting for task transport was intrusive and proprietary towards my canine partner, to the point that I had to tell him to take his hands off her and leave her alone. (A less tolerant dog would have done so herself.) It was ICKY. This was a a person who was neither trained nor equipped to be in the place we encountered him, and there were no animals in need of rescue there. (The wild boar probably would have turned him down, as they were doing quite well on flood debris.) But it was a great photo op site.

Again, skepticism is in order about the self-reporting of any party that "helps" at a disaster. I'll refer all to the ersatz "Bear Search and Rescue Foundation" for lessons learned by too many credulous people.

Nice pictures, they really bring home what is happening there. I am so proud of my rescue friends in Iowa City. They acted quickly, and are even havign successful adoptions in their emergancy shelter. I'm also proud of the families there in the red cross shelter, that are visiting, walking and caring for their pets in the emergancy animal shelter daily. It's that amazing human / animal bond at work.

I've had the good fortune to work alongside Best Friends folks as a volunteer for a number of years, and I know the gentleman in the dry suit with the sunglasses and the kitten personally - an ex-marine with swift water rescue training who I have the utmost respect for.